Words in Art
For many years, the New Art Centre at Roche Court Sculpture Park has specialised in letter-cutting, stone carving, and artists who have incorporated the word in their work. We have a number of outstanding works by Trevor Clarke, Sebastian Brooke, Kate Owen, and Gary Breeze.
Trevor Clarke
It is not the work itself it is to keep oneself in condition to do it that is difficult, 2009
A quote from Brancusi
Welsh slate
154 x 64 cm
5ft 2 x 25 in.
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Trevor Clarke (b.1971) is a sculptor and letter-carver based near Stourbridge in the West Midlands. His letter-form work often draws upon existing texts and quotations, which he carves into stone. He also works with slate, granite, wood, bronze, steel and ceramic.
Clarke studied at the University of Wolverhampton, going on to achieve a masters degree in Fine Art, concentrating on sculpture. Clarke has been carving letters and making sculpture since 2006, both producing his own work and as an assistant to John Neilson, Gary Breeze and Peter Randall-Page amongst others. He is a visiting lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton, teaching bronze casting and stone carving.
The 2008 winner of the Sandvik Award for Excellence in Sculpture, Clarke has also contributed numerous major public art projects throughout the UK, including the V&A grand entrance Donor Recognition Scheme; ‘Timeline Serpentine Path’, Durlston Country Park, Swanage; and ‘Barry Poem’, Barry, South Wales.
Gary Breeze
Too marvellous for words, 2004
Limestone
36 x 45 x 6 cm
1ft 2 ⅛ x 1ft 5 ¾ x 2 ⅜ in.
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Amoris ergo / cantum ab al/ite aufero:
mi/randam te, te / maxime
mirab/ilem approbo.
So I take from the bird a song of love:
I praise you as wonderful
as marvellous in the highest degree.
'And so I'm borrowing a love song from the birds
To tell you that you're marvellous
Too marvellous for words.'
Lyrics from the song Too Marvellous For Words
written by Johnny Mercer.
Since his training at the Norwich School of Art, Gary Breeze set up his letter cutting workshop in Diss, Norfolk and has received commissions for prestigious memorials including The Soviet War memorial at The Imperial War Museum and the memorial to the victims of the Bali Bombings at Clive Steps, St James' Park. Breeze's work, both witty and inventive, has contributed much to the revival of letter cutting and has been exhibited throughout the UK. His solo exhibition Musaeum took place at the New Art Centre in 2004.
In January 2012, he had an exhibition at the Norwich Castle Museum entitled 'The Inscribed Landscape'.
Sebastian Brooke
Let Him Accept the Water of Life with Thanks, 1999
Bath stone
103 x 47 x 10 cm
40 ½ x 18 ½ x 4 in.
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Accipiat aquam vitae, gratis.
The inscription at Roche Court reads a quote from Revelations 22 verse 17.
"And let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life."
Sebastian Brooke is a letter-cutter and stone-carver based in Wales. Since 2006, he has been working on the massive project, MEMO, on the Isle of Portland which is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. This stone monument will be a Mass Extinction Monitoring Observatory. The project is to draw attention to the ongoing extinction of species worldwide.
His work is included in collections at both Oxford University and Harvard University.
Kate Owen
You May Determine , 2000
Welsh Slate
31 x 96 x 2 cm
12 x 37 ¾ x ¾ in.
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You may determine the length of the wings that a man must use if he wants to fly; since the length of a swallow’s wing is about twice the length of its whole body, the length of a wing for a man of 5 feet must be 10 feet. The rest can readily be deducted. Nevertheless many other kinds of birds should be examined, for example geese, partridge, dove, hens, vultures, eagles, before you commit yourself to the winds.
- Marin Mersenne (1588 - 1648) was a French theologian, natural philosopher, and mathematician. He was an active correspondent with people such as René Descartes on the theories of flight.
Kate Owen (b. 1963) emigrated to England from Canada in 1983. She studied Fine Art at Chelsea School of Art & Design, then attended Goldsmiths College (1989-1993). During these four years, she produced sculptural works which took her written short stories and prose as their source. Eventually, these sculptures were honed to almost exclusively text, words and letters. This led to an apprenticeship with Richard Kindersley in 1994. She was awarded a Crafts Council setting up grant in 1996, followed by numerous exhibitions and private commissions.
Poets’ Riddles in Stone
In the summer of 2008, the 'Poets' Riddles in Stone' exhibition at the New Art Centre brought together writers and letter-cutters who created new works for the walled garden at Roche Court.
A number of new riddles were composed and engraved into stone by some of the most talented letter-cutters working today.
The exhibition featured work by Gary Breeze, John Nielson, Kristoffel Boudens, Charles Gurrey, Ben Jones, Richard Kindersley, Tom Perkins, Charlotte Howarth and Zoe Cull.
